Brown

James Brown b. 1655

/ Kirstin Miller

James Brown 8th great grandpa on RootsMagic tree.

James Brown was born on May 4, 1655 in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. His grandparents John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley were on the Mayflower, married and had 10 children, with millions of descendants today. Elizabeth lived with James and family from 1687 to 1673 and would have shared her stories of the Mayflower and those first years in colonial America.

John married Margaret Dennison on June 5, 1678, and they had at least 10 children. James was known as a Lieutenant in the ‘militia’, the history of his service is lost. He could have been in one the biggest battles of the time, the Great Swamp Massacre of December 1675, recently in the news, the sacred land has been returned to the Narragansett Indians.
https://thepublicsradio.org/article/site-of-great-swamp-massacre-returned-to-narragansett-indian-tribe

James wrote his will June 28, 1717 and died on April 15, 1718 . “James Brown of the Town of swanzey In the County of Bristol In his majesties Provence of the massachusets Bay In Newengland yeoman ; Being Crazie of Body but of Perfect minde and memory Thanks be Given to God … Do make & ordain this my Last will & Testement. The oldest son James received the family farm, upland & meadows, -with this Reserve that my wife margrett Brown have the use of all the meadow I now make use of Dureing her Naturall Life or widdowhood”. Younger sons received other lands, daughters received money. James’s inventory included clothing, housewares, looms and yarns, livestock, rights to the sawmill and more.

James is buried at Ancient Little Neck Cemetery, on the Providence River. His headstone is there, inscribed with, “In Memory of Lieut. JAMES BROWN who Died April 15th 1718 in the 60th Year of his Age”. Many of James’s family are buried there too including his grandma, Elizabeth Tilley Howland.

Sources

Rebecca Brown b. 1676

/ Kirstin Miller

Rebecca Brown 7th great grandma on RootsMagic tree.

Rebecca Brown was born in New Haven, Connecticut in 1676 the youngest of 7 kids. Her mom’s dad and both grandpas were pastors who founded churches in Concord, Massachusetts- Peter Bulkeley and New Haven- John Jones. In 1703 Rebecca married Benjamin English.

Brown, Eleazer and Sarah Bulkeley, children

Eleazer Brown, Sarah Bulkeley, their children

Benjamin was a widow from Salem. He and his cousin William Punchard arrived in New Haven in 1701 or so and they married sisters: Benjamin married Rebecca Brown and William married Hannah Brown. Rebecca and Benjamin stayed in New Haven and had 8 children. One daughter, Mary English, had a son John Connable who had a daughter Lydia Connable. Lydia married Obed Gaines and in the 1850s journeyed about 1,245 miles to Iowa where in 1878 the Mary Ella Gaines and James Miller married and had a son William Miller who had a son Faber Miller who married Gladys Cable.

Sources

 

Ann Brown b. 1684

/ Kirstin Miller

Ann Brown was born in Swansea, Massachusetts to James Brown and Margaret Denison. James Brown was the son of James Brown and Lydia Howland. Lydia Howland was the daughter of Elizabeth Tilley and John Howland. Both Elizabeth and John were on the Mayflower with their families. John Howland was in the same 22d of May, 1627 cow and goat division as Francis Sprague Lot 6, Howlands were Lot 4. Ann Brown’s parentage was unknown in 1900 and is now documented in a couple reliable sources. Both Ann and her sister Mary are listed in their parents’s will. Ann Brown married Samuel Hill, Mary Brown married James Angell.

The Wills of Lieutenant James Brown and his widow Margaret at HathiTrust, The Mayflower Descendant Volume 17 page 193 several pages.
  • Item I Give unto my Daughter Mary Angell In addition to what I have Already Given her Three Pounds.
  • Item I Give & Bequeath unto my Daughter Ann Hill In Addition To what I have Already Given her Three Pounds.

Ann is also listed in Mayflower Births and Deaths: Margaret Dennison (dau of Capt. George) b c1656, d. 5 May 1741, 85th yr Attleboro Children of James Brown3 and Margaret Denison: Ann Brown4 b ( ) d. 3 Dec 1747 Rehoboth … descending from Lydia Howland2 John1. Mayflower Births and Deaths is a $ source on Ancestry: Roser, Susan E. Mayflower Births and Deaths, Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Company, Inc., 1992

Ann Brown (1684 – 1747)
James Hill (1726 – 1802)
Cynthia Hill (1763 – 1830)
Dexter Angell (1794 – 1854)
Delia Viola Angell (1839 – 1916)
Matilda Elizabeth Flood (1858 – 1940)
Philippa Flood Mockford (1891 – 1979)
Elizabeth Speedy (1917 – 2005) m. Stanley Roose (1915 – 2004)

Francis Brown b. 1610

/ Kirstin Miller

Francis Brown b. 1610 9th great grandfather on RootsMagic tree

Francis Brown was born in England and sailed to America by 1636 when he married Mary Edwards. Francis connected with a Boston group led by Theophilus Eaton (would become gov’r) and John Davenport (religious leader).

In August 1637 Francis was part of an expedition searching for a new settlement, they found Quinnipiac (today East Haven, CT, also the name of a Native American nation long gone). Francis was one of seven to stay behind and begin building a settlement for all the group to join spring of 1638. “We may imagine they spent their time hewing, cleaving and sawing, hunting, trapping and collecting by bartering with the natives beaver and other furs.” The land was probably purchased with “twelve coats of English cloth, twelve alchemy spoons, twelve hatchets, twelve hoes, two dozen knives, twelve porringers, and four cases of French knives & scissors.” New Haven Connecticut was officially founded April 14, 1638, the first planned city in America, a “Nine Square Plan”.

In 1639 Francis became a freeman. In 1645 Francis asked the colonial court for a bit of land in exchange for being an on call ferryman. Francis stayed in New Haven until his death, noted in Connecticut Town Death Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection) at Ancestry. “Brown, Francis the first of that family d. 1668.”

Francis Brown 1610-1668
Eleazer Brown 1642-1714
Rebecca Brown 1684-1768
Mary English 1715-1791
Elizabeth Connable 1757-1821
William Newcomb Gaines 1825-1907
Mary Ella Gaines 1855-1917
William Earl Miller 1879-1949
Faber Miller 1905-1957 m. Gladys Cable 1913-1991

Sources:
Land in exchange for ferry. Page 165 New-Haven Colony. Records of the Colony And Plantation of New Haven. Hartford: Case, Tiffany and company, 1857.

7 who stayed behind. Page 63 Atwater, Edward E. History of the Colony of New Haven, New Haven: Printed for the author, 1881

At Wikipedia, sources are provided
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophilus_Eaton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Davenport_(clergyman)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Haven,_Connecticut